How is the UK preparing for no-deal Brexit
The Brexit deadline has now been extended to the 31st of October. But, with no-deal Brexit still a possibility, the UK is still making preparations for this scenario.
“Operation Yellowhammer” is part of the UK’s £1.5 billion budget, which has been allocated to handle the Brexit preparations. The EU recently announced its preparations for no-deal Brexit.
It covers a total of 12 areas, including healthcare, food, water, transport, and energy. The plans are currently based on the “worst case scenario”, which would be border checks being implemented immediately, price increases on essential living costs, and food, medicine, and energy shortages.
The UK’s plans under Operation Yellowhammer include the following:
Transport
In a no-deal scenario, there could be disruption to lorries traveling between the UK and the EU, including customs checks, and physical checks on products arriving from the UK to ensure they meet EU single market rules.
These additional checks and delays could lead to traffic disruption. Approximately 10,000 lorries travel through the Port of Dover every day, so the extra processing time could mean traffic delays.
To avoid this, the government has made plans to set up a contraflow system to divert lorries. If further capacity is needed, a temporary lorry park could be set up on the M26, which could accommodate up to 2000 lorries.
Food
In the event of the no-deal Brexit, the UK government plans to cut tariffs on most food imports. That means that some products from outside the EU would be cheaper, whilst others that are imported from the EU would become more expensive.
There could also be delays at the border, meaning there could be shortages of some types of food. Supermarkets have been warned that they should stockpile long-life food products.
Healthcare
According to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the supply of thousands of medicines could be disrupted.
Therefore, suppliers have been told to stockpile six weeks worth of drugs in addition to their current backup stock.
This also applies to vaccines, blood, and transplant products; additional contracts have been agreed for the extra warehouse space that’s needed to store these.
For medicines that can’t be stockpiled due to having a short shelf life, a plane has been chartered to deliver them if shortages occur.
